On
the evening of February 14, 1969, Henry Kissinger attended a
reception at the Soviet Embassy. Ushered upstairs to the private
apartment of the Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, the
National Security Advisor for recently inaugurated President
Richard M. Nixon saw that his Soviet host was “confined to bed
with the flu.” Nevertheless, the two men had a brief and
“extremely forthcoming” conversation about the status of
U.S.-Soviet relations and the hazards to peace, namely the
Middle East tinderbox and the United States’ continued
involvement in Southeast Asia. Years later, Kissinger recalled,
“[Dobrynin] suggested that since we would work closely we call
each other by our first names. From then on, he was ‘Anatol’ and
I was ‘Henry’ (or more often “Khenry,” since the Russian
language has no ‘h’ sound).” Poking fun at himself, Kissinger
added, “We spoke in English. I did not make fun of him because
he spoke with an accent.”[1]

Over the course of Nixon’s first term, 1969-1972, Kissinger and
Dobrynin conducted secret backchannel exchanges that laid the
foundation for U.S.-Soviet détente—the reduction of tensions
between the superpowers. Détente flowered with the May 1972
Moscow Summit, where a monumental agreement to limit the arms
race—the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (I) Treaty—was signed.

It is fitting that Dobrynin, the long-serving Soviet ambassador
who dealt in confidence with U.S. Presidents from Kennedy
through Reagan, passed away on the day Presidents Obama and
Medvedev signed the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. After
all, it was Dobrynin who played an instrumental role in
establishing the foundation on which arms control was built over
the last four decades. Perhaps his spirit will live on in a new
era of Russo-American détente in which our nuclear weapons
arsenals—comprising 90% of the world’s total nuclear weapons—are
further reduced.

nixontapes.org is pleased to
bring you the conversations from the Nixon Tapes in which
Ambassador Dobrynin was a participant.

Highlights from the conversations include:

521-005: Nixon, Kissinger and Dobrynin had a wide-ranging
conversation about the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks
(SALT) and a possible settlement over longstanding concerns
over the status of Germany and Berlin. Nixon said it was
essential for the U.S. to play a “leadership role” in
nuclear disarmament and reaffirmed Kissinger’s “special
relationship” with the Soviets to make progress on SALT.

006-040: Nixon and Kissinger expressed their condolences to
the Kremlin leadership via Ambassador Dobrynin on the Soviet
Union’s loss of 3 cosmonauts in
Soyuz 11.

006-079: Dobrynin conveyed the Soviet leadership’s “sincere
appreciation” for Nixon’s condolences regarding the tragic
death of the Soviet cosmonauts.

580-020: Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko visited the
White House during his annual trip to the United Nations in
New York City. Following a longer group discussion in which
Dobrynin was a participant, the group departed and Nixon had
a 20-minute
tête-à-tête with Gromyko. After general pronouncements
about the special role of the two superpowers in maintaining
international order, Nixon candidly described the importance
of the Kissinger-Dobrynin channel and expressed his desire
to move Middle East discussions to “the Channel.”

019-065: This audiotape is the only American record of this
conversation. On the eve of a major foreign policy speech by
President Nixon detailing the secret negotiations with the
North Vietnamese, in the presence of the President,
Kissinger called the Soviet Ambassador, and pleaded for the
Soviets to restrain their ally, North Vietnam.
Simultaneously, Kissinger hinted that any North Vietnamese
offensive action would be duly punished.

022-097 and 705-013: Nixon and Kissinger choreographed a
“ladies tea” between First Lady “Pat” Nixon and Dobrynin’s
wife, Irina, to signal to the Soviets that the U.S. was
still interested in détente even though Soviet weapons and
materiel and enabled a massive North Vietnamese offensive
against U.S. ally South Vietnam.

034-030: Nixon expressed his exasperation about the failure
to reach a settlement between the U.S. and the Soviet ally,
North Vietnam. Nixon emphatically told Dobrynin, “We want to
remove this irritant between our relations.”

[1]
Kissinger, WHY, p.113. Kissinger was 15 when he
emigrated to the U.S. His brother, Walter, was 14 at the
time. When asked why he did not speak with a discernible
accent compared to his famous brother’s distinctive
German accent, Walter explained, “Because I am the
Kissinger who listens.” Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A
Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) p.56.